I would like to share with all of you the results of the exit poll that we did at the Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity (ADEI). And, I also want to THANK ALL OF YOU PEOPLE at TrustVote.org who donated to the Institute for the exit poll. Your donations definitely helped us pay our cost over-runs. The Institute and Election Justice USA decided to jointly sponsor an exit poll because Edison Media Research decided to cancel exit polls for the rest of the USA after Attorney Cliff Arnebeck wrote a letter to Edison Research Media asking to see the unadjusted data. There was also an article by Tim Robbins questioning the exit polls that were showing dramatic differences between the exit poll totals and the election night results. At about that time, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was showing a very distinct lead against Clinton in 12 states which disappeared shortly after the polls closed. This suggested that electronic manipulationof the polls was taking place. We at the Institute decided to run an exit poll close to our area in California to try to give voters a better picture of the true election results for at least three counties in California.

ADEI conducted exit polls during the 2016 California presidential primary in three counties at 12 precincts. This was organized and managed, initially, by Josh and Sarah Mittel. The polls were randomized and representative of the demographic data in the precinct area. The counties were Contra Costa, Santa Clara, and Alameda Counties and four polling places were chosen in each county. The sample size was 3, 321. This is an impressive number of people,by the way, as Edison Research Media will often poll only 1200 people in a national presidential election. Lori Grace of the Institute managed the followup which included a week of filing the 3,321 exit poll results into an Excel spread sheet. After that Tina Kimmel PhD, MPH, MSW and Josh Mittel PhD analyzed the data. Both people have an extensive background in statistics.

With respect to the Democratic primary, the results were the following: The official vote for these three counties show Sanders winning over Clinton 49.2% to 46.1%, a 3.1% margin. By official, I mean what was reported at the Secretary of State’s office. The exit polls conducted by the Institute showed Sanders winning over Clinton in a unadjusted exit poll 52.6% to Clinton’s 43.8%. Then we adjusted the results for demographic data and the difference became 51.9% for Sanders and Clinton 44.4%-still a fairly large Sanders victory of 7.5% . You might ask what kind of demographic data did we adjust for. The exit pollers found that older white men did not often agree to fill out the exit poll. They tended to be Trump, Johnson and occasionally Clinton supporters. Gary Johnson is the Libertarian candidate. So for the people who did not participate in the exit poll, many of which were older white men, we added some votes for Trump, Johnson and Clinton proportionally to the exit poll results that we already had.

The Institute used the Senate race as a “benchmark” against the presidential race. This is done in all good polling where you pair a vote you are interested in, like the presidential candidate with the senatorial candidate. The ADEI exit poll results for both candidates Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez matched the official voting tally within the 2 percent margin of error. A 2 percent difference in the margin of error is common in most exit polls and is not considered a fraction of election irregularities or fraud.

One thing that I, Lori of the Institute would like to share is that the people who were helping us with the exit poll were very enthusiastic. This shows me that ordinary citizens can get very excited about ensuring the integrity of the vote. Another thing that I learned from organizing this exit poll is that it was quite expensive. Our total costs, shared between the Institute and Election Justice USA were about $25,000. Also,as you might expect, I learned that exit polling is a great job for people who are very detail-oriented.

Another thing that I would like to acknowledge is that we received many small donations to help us financially with the exit polls. THANK YOU AGAIN, Trust Vote People, you really care about democracy and accurate election results. We at the Institute SO APPRECIATE YOU! We are sad that Bernie decided to give in. He and his staff did not seriously consider the outstanding poll analyses done by Lulu Fries’dat of Election Justice USA together with Anselmo Sampietro and Fritz Scheuren, President of the American Statistical Association. http://www.hollerbackfilm.com/electoral-system-in-crisis/ This habit of not considering electronic manipulation and the strange statistical results that can appear has been a longstanding pattern in American culture. Also, at this point, I have seen three presidential candidates refuse to fight for their right to the presidency based upon evidence of serious electronic fraud. I sat with with a small group of people together Al Gore one day in 2006 as a Climate Project trainee and asked him why he did not push for being president since he felt that the election was stolen. He said to us that he would have caused a revolution and just did not have the stamina to survive what would ensue.I was part of Audit the Vote in 2004. We watched Kerry be evasive and back out of fighting for what was rightfully his. Finally, we have watched Bernie Sanders this year give in in spite of excellent statistics and an army of supporters and make a choice to promote Clinton for president. I am hoping that we can change the system so that presidential candidates will one day be able to stand up for what appears to be very rightfully theirs. – Lori Grace

Good news from California! The lawsuit against Registrar Michael Vu received a ruling from the judge that will support having fair recounts in California. Thank you to those of you who emailed the Institute (TrustVote.org) with your complaints about the California elections, and also to the lawyers who wrote in to help. Your doing so helped us help others, including Ray Lutz and the Citizen’s Oversight Committee in San Diego. One of the lawyers who wrote us became the main lawyer in the lawsuit against Michael Vu, sponsored by Ray Lutz’ Citizen’s Oversight Committee. (Thank you Alan Geraci for writing to us offering your services so we could network you with Ray Lutz.)

We also helped with Bill Simpich’s expenses; he is the attorney who helped Ray Lutz and the Citizen’s Oversight Committee. He has presented with us twice here in Corte Madera, California on election integrity issues. Bill also spoke, along with Robert Fitrakis and Lori Grace, on Dennis Bernstein’s radio show. (See TrustVote.tv) Thank you Bill! And THANK YOU to all of you who generously donated to the Institute. You and your donations have also helped make this positive ruling happen!

What is significant about this court ruling is that counting votes for a 1% random manual tally is NOT a RANDOM tally if you are doing the tally and choosing to leave out a certain percentage of votes. In the case of San Diego registrar Michael Vu, it was over one-third of San Diego voters! Michael Vu and a number of other registrars in California chose not to count provisional ballots before doing a 1% manual tally. Many of the provisional voters were NPP (i.e., No Party Preference) — voters who wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders. Interestingly enough, Michael Vu was asked to resign as registrar in 2006 in Ohio after he manipulated provisional ballots (including shredding some of them) in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election. As of now, no registrar in California will be able to legally conduct the 1% manual tally without counting all of the votes first. Neither will they be able to choose the precincts ahead of time before the election, as they do in Fresno, California. Eliminating any number of votes distorts a recount!

Rather than writing a whole article myself about this ruling, I am including in this update a copy of Ray Lutz’ press conference announcement, so you can get a lively sense about what happened, and the pdf of the ruling from the judge so that you can see how such a ruling is worded.

This pdf is of the lively press release that went out from Citizen’s Oversight Committee about the favorable court ruling. It also contains a clear chart that shows the impact of assessing percentages for candidates in an election if some of the votes are not counted. Very interesting.

With respect to the future, there are two other lawsuits that are going to be submitted in California. Please make sure you are on our TrustVote mailing list, so that you can get our announcements hot off the press! We will be asking for your donations for these lawsuits later in August! Thanks for being people who care SO MUCH about democracy and election integrity!

A group of us, Bill Simpich, Bob Fitrakis, Steve Enzer (TrustVote.TV) and Naomi Anderson went to Philadelphia to present along with Andrea Miller of People Demanding Action on creating a more trustworthy, more democratic election system. We also filmed some of the demonstrations that were occurring around the Democratic convention. We noted that the theme of election fraud was very prominent in the signs carried by protestors. We were glad to see that this topic has now become widely acknowledged. (Picture- Lori Grace)

In the presentation below, Andrea Miller Of PDA talks about voter suppression Southern style with Voter ID laws and continued disenfranchisement of former felons. Lori follows with reaching out to people for support in changing this and many other election integrity issues through joining the mailing list of TrustVote.org (aka The Institute of American Democracy and Election Integrity). Bill Simpich talks about the California lawsuits and making Michael Vu and Secretary of State Padilla accountable for how they manipulated California primary results. Lori follows with talking about how TrustVote.org is going to hold some seminars on new contributions to election integrity such as open source election auditing, reintroducing the Trachtenberg system, and hand counting paper ballots on a precinct level in a number of pilot projects in our upcoming November election.

Movie of the presentation that we did in Philadelphia…

There are three main areas in which the Institute hopes to make an additional contribution this year. One is dealing with the lawsuit against Edison Media Research. Another is dealing with the California lawsuits and the third area is on highlighting solutionsto create more integrity in our election systems. We will seek to introduce possible solutions to our election system by introducing an open source election audit system called Democracy Counts and reintroducing the Trachtenberg system. We hope also to introduce some pilot projects of precinct base hand counting which we feel stimulates citizen participation in our democracy, creates more accuracy than electronic systems and has shown itself to be very time-efficient in the past. With respect to the lawsuits, we hope to follow up by communicating about and fundraising for those lawsuits and other actions in California and in Ohio that will bring the issue of election manipulation forward to the American public and hold accountable election officials that have not been supporting this.

In this update here, we will talk about the Ohio Election Integrity lawsuit. During the primary, it appears to be the case that Edison Research edited exit poll results, taking votes from Bernie Sanders and giving them to Hilary Clinton, so that the election results would match the electronic vote totals. Currently Bob Fitrakis has sued Edison Media Research to release unadjusted exit polls for 12 states in the primary. Edison Media Research has told Bob Fitrakis now to communicate with their lawyers. This response is basically a carefully worded refusal. Their law firm is BakerHostetler, a global law firm that reported earnings of over 600 million dollars in 2015. It will be very difficult for Bob Fitrakis to get the unadjusted exit poll results from Edison Media Research for the primary. The Media consortium and the DNC clearly favored Hillary Clinton getting the DNC nomination throughout the time that Bernie was campaigning. When looking at the nature of the law firm used by Edison Media Research, we can see clearly how much power lies in our country in the hands of extremely large corporations and the legal firms associated with them.

Of course, when Bernie was running the Washington Post called people wondering about the hacking of the primary results ” conspiracy theorists”. This term, originated by Karl Rove in 2004 has been used to discredit people who have been concerned about hacking all the time. The issue is that the mainstream media is being biased in its reporting in that it did not support people concerned about the hacking of the primary, but would very much be concerned about the hacking of the November election where Hillary is concerned.

Hopefully, 2016 will be the final year where people concerned about hacking and exit poll manipulation will be labeled “conspiracy theorists”. In developing and promoting the term “conspiracy theorists” to defend the stealing in 2004, Karl Rove did a serious disservice to American Democracy. We at the Institute would deeply appreciate some contributions so that we can possibly go ahead with the lawsuit to demand the raw data of the primary or at least to publicize widely the Edison Media Research’s refusal to release the data. DONATE TODAY

With Guccifer 2.0 possibly cooperating with the Russians in hacking the DNC website,people have become much more aware that foreign country or person could hack our national elections this year. A call for more transparency, for releasing unadjusted data of exit polls becomes critical. In contrast with the primary, the hacking of the November election is very important to the media.
Edison Media Research has been unwilling to release raw exit data that would have shown that Bernie Sanders won in these twelve states. They may change their policy very quickly if the electronic voting machines are hacked by a foreign country. Of course that has to be proven first. If a foreign country like Russia or Israel hacks the US elections and gives votes to Trump, they may release their raw data if it shows conflicting results. The mainstream media will definitely change how they report about hacking as well. Click Here for the article talking about hacking that the Washington Post has just released.

The BIG ISSUE is that the Mainstream Media is acting like a corporate person with favorites and with lots of autonomy and choices as to what they will reveal. So the question is: Is this fair in a democracy or should the media report fairly and equally on all issues? I would answer yes to this question.

Update below July 19, 2016

We are also seeking to raise funds to cover the expenses of the California lawsuits and declarations discussed below. Before looking at the lawsuits (see PDF links at the bottom of this article), I recommend looking at the the Youtube movies, or some of them below, so that you can understand the situations that generated them. I would like to give you the movie and background behind them. We showed the movie UNCOUNTED:The True Story of the California Primary about two weeks ago but it is featured below for those of you who have missed it. One of the lawsuits challenges the poor training of pollworkers as organized by California’s Secretary of State Alex Padilla who was also holding fundraisers for Hillary Clinton. Another lawsuit challenges Michael Vu, San Diego’s Registrar of Voters. Other lawsuits are being formulated for other counties. As the press conference video shows below, these lawsuits will involve about 60% of the total number of voters in California. A Northern California lawsuit filed by Bill Simpich will challenge the guidelines that election officials gave vote-counting observers. These guidelines were not consistent in any way with the California elections manual says about how one observes.

A personal note from Lori: I love Youtubes when I can find them on any issue that I care about because it gives me an emotional feeling for what I care about.

These Youtube movies will outline for you some of the reasons why election integrity lawsuits have been submitted:

The videos below will show you how the election process was corrupted in San Diego. It was corrupted in other places as well. Young people were profiled within the Democratic party using the Minivan system and were challenged with obstacles to voting such as the one mentioned by the Ballot Monitors where their votes was thrown away if they were part of a university and did not put down their dorm room number.

In the video below, you will see how choices for president were being whited-out before counting the ballots. This was by order of the California Democratic party. Citizen election monitors in San Diego have captured film of ballots which have been tampered with, with white-out erasing only Sanders votes, sometimes with part of Bernie Sanders’ first name obscured as well. In the video, a monitor reports that almost half the ballots in the box of ballots she witnessed had been so altered, always against Sanders. She says the box she witnessed contained about 300 ballots, and that it was only one of many counting stations she could not witness.

This is how people were treated when they wanted to observe ballots being counted. The distance restrictions mentioned by the election officials and the prohibition against videotaping are not listed in the Secretary of State’s manual on observing, although election officials told these observers that those were the rules. You can also see in this youtube how defensive the election officials are.

A shredding truck was parked outside the Registrar’s office during the firstpress conference. In a staff inquiry later, the shredding of ballots was mentioned, although no shredding should be occurring at this time. We do not know as of yet which ballots were shredded. The presence of a shredding truck creates suspicion in voters. Trust in our voting system is essential for it to work. Michael Vu who worked formerly in Ohio had shredded provisional ballots in 2004 before he was told to resign from his post there in 2006. He was then hired by the city of San Diego as the Registrar of Voters. Michael Vu’s behavior in no way supports public trust and engagement in our electoral process.

The most recent press conference about the Citizen’s Oversight Lawsuit filed by Ray Lutz, together with attorneys-at-law Bill Simpich and Duana Bain.

Lawsuit Budget

Here are expenses for the lawsuits that we are seeking to raise money for. Ray Lutz has also been raising money down in San Diego. As you can see, these lawsuits are being conducted entirely by volunteers. We will be extremely grateful for whatever you can donate!

Per diem is an inaccurate phrase for Netra and Dwana. $50 per day for Netra and Dwana is the accurate per diem.

California Election Integrity Lawsuits

Delegate Budget

Click on images above to download or see the lawsuit filings of Citizens Oversight, Inc. as PDF documents…

________________________________

First Ohio Election Integrity Lawsuit filed…

Robert Fitrakis, Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism

Lori Grace, Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity

Bill Simpich, Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity

I am thrilled to announce that Bob Fitrakis the lawyer and board member and writer of the Columbus Institute of Contemporary Journalism, has filed the first Ohio Election Integrity Lawsuit against Edison Media Research to release the raw data which shows such dramatic differences on exit polls and electronic vote totals in eleven states in the presidential primaries throughout the US. The file number and details of this lawsuit as transmitted to me are as follows:

Although I have presented the file number of the lawsuit at this time, as you may find out the contents are not available for viewing at this time. Nonetheless since so many of you wanted the file number, I am including it in this announcement for you. I will let all of you know as soon as the details of the lawsuit will become available. The biggest opportunity in informing you in detail about this lawsuit is the education that goes with informing you about our election systems.

The exit polls have been adjusted to fit electronic vote totals since 2004 when they appeared to show Kerry winning against Bush. Explanations were developed at that time to explain the differences between the exit polls and the vote totals which was that exit polls are generally unreliable. This assessment of exit poll reliability was developed by Karl Rove who was an assistant to George Bush. In order to keep the Media Consortium business money coming in, Edison Media Research has always edited, or “cleaned” as they put it their data since that time. The raw data exit polls are stored at the University of Connecticut. No one has ever requested them. We are requesting it for the first time.

People who want to see raw data are often labeled “conspiracy theorists”. We want to make sure you know that we will be described as such. Actually, we are just people wanting to see unedited exit polls and to learn what really happened during our primary elections. As you may know, the exit polls and the electronic vote totals are very different in eleven states. The Media Consortium and Edison Media Research canceled the exit polls for California, New Jersey, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, New Mexico and Puerto Rico, after receiving a letter from Cliff Arnebeck, the other lawyer who works with Bob Fitrakis asking the Edison Research to put a hold on the raw data.

We are expecting the Edison Media Research to file a motion to dismiss. They have up to sixty days to do this. During this time, we need to spread the word about this lawsuit to as many people as possible. We also need to raise funds to address further legal costs. If you feel inspired to support us, please donate to this lawsuit on the Ohio Election Integrity lawsuit button on Trustvote.org. We really appreciate your help however large or small. Thank you!! Our costs are going to rise significantly now. If we raise money beyond our legal costs, we will be able to direct some of this money towards alternative media education so that many people in the US begin to know about the kind of election editing that goes on.

If we are successful with this lawsuit, we will then file another lawsuit to look at the paper ballots. Everyone will be educated throughout this process about the real role of Edison Media Research and the Media Consortium in presenting news about our elections. The Media Consortium consists of CBS, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, Fox News and the Associated Press (AP). Our examining the ballots will show us who really won the Democratic presidential primary. Although Bernie may have already conceded by that time or before then, at least he will know what the truth was about how many votes he really garnered. He can do with that what he wants. Additionally, voters will know the truth about the Democratic presidential primary and how votes were handled.

The results of looking at these ballots has substantial consequences for American people. Americans will have been educated about what really happens when large corporations with partisan interests who are part of the 1% count our ballots with proprietary software that no one is allowed to look at to see if the vote totals have changed. This process in our country makes our elections extremely vulnerable to hacking and manipulation. As a large group of people, perhaps millions of people, learn about the unfortunate nature of our election process, that same large group will have a chance to begin to demand and create a much more transparent system, a system that is run by the people and for the people. A system that is hopefully not run by private partisan corporations. This is also the deep heartfelt wish of both the Institute of American Democracy and Election Integrity and the Institute of Contemporary Journalism. It is a wish which members of both Institutes feel will require the support of millions of people to effect a change.

Come join us in manifesting this change. It will take time, but it will be extremely satisfying!

Bob Fitrakis, Lori Grace, and Bill Simpich were on KPFA radio July 12th.

7:30-10:00 pm, Wednesday May 25, and Friday May 27, 2016, (video above is of Friday’s presentation)

Sunrise Center, 645 Tamalpais, Corte Madera, CA

A Summary of the Evening of May 27th: This evening covered the issues we are all facing as voters in the 2016 election. Lori Grace, on behalf of the Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity (www.trustvote.org), presented Bob Fitrakis, PhD, JD, and Cliff Arnebeck, JD, two election lawyers she has worked with since 2004. They talked about past challenges to election integrity in our presidential elections, the challenges we face in the current presidential election, and the opportunities we have as voters to create a more honest election.

They showed videos from past presidential elections that point to the problems from those years and discussed what was done about those problems at that time. Then they discussed what problems exist for the upcoming election and what can be done to address them. Overall, our best protection to have a trustworthy election is to be an informed public that will demand more public oversight of elections and exit polling and to have the patience and persistence to deal with a system that currently does not give us the reliability and transparency we need.

A Look at the Upcoming 2016 Election: 2016 is, of course, a presidential election year and problems with voting in the primary elections have already been showing up. Not a good sign for the general election!

In watching the video above, you will learn Learn why the integrity of this November’s election may be of serious concern. Here in the United States, all of our votes are counted by private corporations with proprietary software which they do not want people to examine if there is a problem with the election. These problems could include unwarranted purging of voters, apparent flipping of votes, disappearing of a candidate(s) while voting and disappearing of votes. An examination of Scytl/SOE and ES&S, two vote-counting companies, shows many negative reviews regarding their management of elections. (You can read numerous such reviews by doing a web search for the company name and “reviews.”) In addition, some people may have concerns that companies like Scytl/SOE and ES&S which managed the votes in Kentucky, New York and Arizona, have directors who are also on the boards of other companies involved in wire-tapping, the defense industry and military interrogations. Additional concerns are that some American votes may actually be counted in Toronto, Canada and in Barcelona, Spain.

Still another hurdle also exists when election results appear to be inaccurate and that is at least in California, the election must be certified before ballots can be inspected. That takes in California thirty days so by the time, the apparent winner has already proclaimed and celebrated his or her victory- a difficult situation to reverse or re-examine.

With more states’ primary elections coming up on June 7th, including one in California, which is a potentially decisive state for the two Democratic candidates, The Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity is concerned that The Media Consortium has cancelled all remaining exit polls for the remaining primaries. Thus, the Institute, a division of Sunrise Center,a nonprofit registered in California, is calling for an exit poll to be held on election day. All raw data will be released immediately for inspection. If an exit poll is funded by a nonprofit, contributions to the exit poll are tax-deductible. Results will give people true knowledge about whether questionable results have occurred in the election. Then audits would be much easier to organize. Happily, California is mostly a paper ballot state. Additionally, a new kind of audit is being launched by Democracy Counts. This will occur on Election Day as well.

Concern has been expressed that the exit polls of the Democratic Primaries for this year, when compared to electronic voting machine totals, seem to show a pattern that might suggest that the electronic vote totals in about ten states may have been shifted from apparently votes from Sanders to Clinton.. In contrast to other nations, exit polls used currently by the Federal Government to assess election fraud in other countries are adjusted continuously on election day to match electronic voting machine totals, rather than to determine whether the electronic vote is accurate. Edison Research which has done all the prior exit polls in this primary has refused to release the raw data, as it has routinely refused since 2004. A lawsuit is being submitted in Ohio about the refusal of both the Media Consortium and Edison Research to release the raw data which would show much more accurately who people really voted for.

A 2006 video of security expert, Stephen Spoonamore, talks about the importance of exit polls and how exit polls show very different results from electronic voting machine data in the US than in other countries. Below is a 2016 dialogue with the Chicago Board of Elections about manual tally workers changing total votes for Sanders into Clinton votes to match the electronic voting machine totals. The staff doing the manual county were pressured by their employers who are part of the the Chicago Board of Elections to make their hand counted totals match the machine totals. This video also shows the kind of defensive behavior that Boards of elections frequently demonstrate even when politely challenged.

If you want to see the full hearing, start at minute 27. The article will also summarize the whole story. Click to learn more.

IMPORTANT NOTE:Although we have taken note of the shift here from Sanders to Clinton, we are NOT in any way stating who has done the shifting. WE DO NOT KNOW WHO HAS DONE THE SHIFTING OF THE ELECTRONIC VOTE TOTALS. This situation has galvanized three organizations, The Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity (ADE) , the Columbus Institute of Contemporary Journalism, and Democracy Counts to set up our own exit polls and audits to track apparent election results in California.

Richard Charnin, a mathematician and statistician and author of the book, Matrix of Deceit, has been reporting on the apparent shifting of electronic vote totals and the non-release of raw data from Edison since 2004. Richard Charnin, well-known for what he calls the “Red Shift” which has been a shift between exit polls and electronic vote total differences of about 4-5% each year. This constitutes a shift to the political right. Although he is unable to analyze the raw data, he has been able to get screen shots of what the exit polls showed minutes before all of the electronic votes have been totaled since 2004. In 2004, when Edison Research initially got exit poll data that said that Kerry was winning and Bush was losing at 9pm on election night and that the reverse was true shortly after midnight, Edison Research made a choice to “adjust” the raw data after that time so that it would match the electronic voting machine totals. Edison Research definitely wanted to keep being hired by the Media Consortium which proposes to tell viewers the true election results but which also chooses to trust electronic voting machine data. That was the last time that the American public has been able to see raw exit poll data.

Unfortunately this year, substantial exit poll differences have been noted in the US primary. In this year’s primary, the Red Shift appears to have become the “Clinton Shift”. See the data below.

As computer security expert Stephen Spoonamore notes in the video above, when exit poll data varies more than 2% from electronic vote totals, the electronic vote totals are questionnable. If fact, 2% is used as the boundary by the US government when determining that the election in another country other than the US has possibly been stolen. Please note the exit poll differences up above that are more than 2%. These differences point to questionable results for the electronic vote totals.

For whatever reason, the Media Consortium and Edison Research have decided to cancel the exit polls for the remaining 2016 primaries. Some suspect these exit polls have been canceled because these exit poll differences have become suspect. Others believe it is because the Media Consortium has viewed these primaries as unimportant with respect to the final results of the primaries for the presidential candidates. Thus the remaining primary elections will not have the larger exit polls to reflect on the accuracy of the electronic vote totals. Although Edison usually receives money from The Media Consortium for conducting primaries exit polling, it will receive much more during the November election, so canceling it is not that great a financial hardship for Edison Research. Maintaining the trust of the American people and The Media Consortium is more important to their company’s financial picture. So, stopping still more questionable exit poll differences is helpful to maintain the trust of the American people in Edison Research and the Media Consortium.

The trouble is that the trust of the American people this year has not been won by Edison Research and the Media Consortium by choosing the cancel the exit polls that appear to show a repeated shift from Sanders to Clinton. The Institute of American Democracy and Election Integrity, The Institute of Contemporary Journalism and Democracy Counts see an opportunity at this time to initiate exit polls and election audits in select locations in California where Sanders has done much campaigning to attempt to give a perspective on the accuracy of the electronic vote totals and to help educate citizens about election integrity.

If you share a concern about the verity of the electronic voting machines and if you would like to help contribute to a more transparent election here in California, you may support the exit poll or the election audit sponsored by the Institute together with Election Justice USA and Democracy Counts. by contributing financially or even volunteering your time on June 7th. If you choose to volunteer, you will get a great introduction into the whole field of election integrity. Our letting The Media Consortium and Edison Research know that there will still be an exit poll and election audit could also be a deterrent to vote manipulation. AND PLEASE NOTE AGAIN we are not saying here that they are altering these election results.

On a more personal note,if nothing else, be sure to take a printed copy of your registration to the polling location if you are not a permanent absentee voter. If you are, and your ballot came in the mail, check your ballot ahead of time to be sure it accurately represents the party in which you are registered, which allows you to vote for the candidate of your choice. If you are NPP, (no party preference) and you want to vote for a presidential candidate, ask for a Democratic or a Republican conversion ballot so that you may vote for a presidential candidate. Do everything possible to not vote provisionally as these are usually counted, if at all, after the election is called. We also recommend physically taking your ballot to the polling location, rather than mailing it, so there is no chance that it gets lost in the mail.

Other things you can do include becoming a poll observer with a modest amount of training. Manipulation of the vote can frequently be minimized when there are people watching the process. Becoming a poll worker is an even bigger step. If you happen to be voting on an electronic voting machine without a paper trail, take a videoor snapshot of the screen if you see it was flipped to the opposing candidate or if your candidate of choice fades away on the screen.

Independent Citizen’s Election Audit to Be Conducted in Select Precincts in California on June 7th.
San Diego, CA/USA — June 1, 2016: Using an innovative smartphone app and professional non-partisan audit processes, Democracy Counts!, a California nonprofit organization, will conduct a pilot citizen audit of the June 7 California primary. For the first time it will be possible to verify the official results of an election in real time. If evidence of fraud is uncovered, it may be used to challenge the results in court.
The audit will be performed by volunteer auditors in select precincts in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas. Much like an exit poll, voters exiting their polling places will be approached by the auditors, but instead of being asked who they voted for inside, they will be asked to “vote again” for President in the robust, verifiable voting software developed by Democracy Counts! In the event that their data points to the possibility of illegal vote manipulation, Democracy Counts! will make such evidence available to the potentially injured candidate(s) for immediate legal challenges.
America’s patchwork of weak and vulnerable vote-counting machinery, including our notorious paperless touch-screen systems, have inspired widespread belief that elections in America are being rigged. The lack of verifiability contributes directly to this belief, which undermines confidence in America’s voting processes in general. Democracy Counts! audits are designed to provide the direct evidence required to precipitate thorough investigations, which should either restore confidence or result in corrections.
Founder Daniel Wolf is a Fulbright Scholar and entrepreneur who wrote one of the world’s first manuals on election observation while a student at Harvard Law School. “Had such an audit been available sixteen years ago,” he noted, “the country might have been spared the ‘hanging chad’ agony in Florida in ‘00 that led to the controversial involvement of the Supreme Court. Had it been available in ’04 we might have been spared the deepening cynicism provoked by allegations of fraud in Ohio.”
Without independent verification of official results, the truth is unknowable. The mission of Democracy Counts! is to make the truth knowable, and to restore confidence in American elections. This small-scale pilot will test the audit processes and software in advance of its nationwide launch for the November presidential election.
The significance of the audit system is clear: It will provide the American people an unprecedented opportunity to put the entire American election system under scrutiny, will provide them a way to take effective action that they have never before possessed, and may result in challenges to hundreds of elections around the country—even up to and including the Presidential race.
The DemocracyCounts! Citizens Audit is being conducted with the support of The Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity (www.TrustVote.org), the Columbus Institute for Contemporary Journalism (www.colsfreepress@gmail.com), and Election Justice USA (www.ElectionJusticeUsa.org).
Those wishing to learn more about how Democracy Counts! audit system works, or how to volunteer their energy in the primary or in November, may visit the website of Democracy Counts! (www.DemocracyCounts.org). People wishing to make donations to Democracy Counts! are invited to go to the Donate page on the website of the Institute of Democracy and Election Integrity (www.trustvote.org).

Elections are momentous events in a nation’s civic and political life. In… countries around the world, [people]… make their voices heard through the extraordinary power of the vote. [It is essential] that elected officials are accountable to citizens.
Neil Levine, Director Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights & Governance

7:30-10:00 pm, Wednesday May 25, and Friday May 27, 2016, (video above is of Friday’s presentation)

Sunrise Center, 645 Tamalpais, Corte Madera, CA

This evening covered the issues we are all facing as voters in the 2016 election. Lori Grace, on behalf of the Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity (www.trustvote.org), presented Bob Fitrakis, PhD, JD, and Cliff Arnebeck, JD, two election lawyers she has worked with since 2004. They talked about past challenges to election integrity in our presidential elections, the challenges we face in the current presidential election, and the opportunities we have as voters to create a more honest election.

They showed videos from past presidential elections that point to the problems from those years and discussed what was done about those problems at that time. Then they discussed what problems exist for the upcoming election and what can be done to address them. Overall, our best protection to have a trustworthy election is to be an informed public that will demand more public oversight of elections and exit polling and to have the patience and persistence to deal with a system that currently does not give us the reliability and transparency we need.

2016 is, of course, a presidential election year and problems with voting in the primary elections have already been showing up. Not a good sign for the general election! Would you like to learn how to protect the voting process as well as protect your own right to vote? If so, this is the workshop for you!

Learn why the integrity of this November’s election may be of serious concern. Here in the United States, all of our votes are counted by private corporations. After an election, it is very difficult to look at the votes that may have been lost or changed electronically because these private corporations hold their software as proprietary. An examination of Scytl/SOE and ES&S, two vote-counting companies, shows many negative reviews regarding their management of elections. (You can read numerous such reviews by doing a web search for the company name and “reviews.”) In addition, some people may have concerns that companies like Scytl/SOE and ES&S which managed the votes in Kentucky, New York and Arizona, have directors who are also on the boards of other companies involved in wire-tapping, the defense industry and military interrogations. Additional concerns are that some American votes may actually be counted in Toronto, Canada and in Barcelona, Spain.

With more states’ primary elections coming up on June 7th, including one in California, which is a potentially decisive state for the Democrats, The Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity is concerned that The Media Consortium has cancelled all remaining exit polls for the remaining primaries. Thus, the Institute, a division of Sunrise Center, is calling for an exit poll to be held in California. If an exit poll is funded by a nonprofit, contributions to the exit poll are tax-deductible. Results will give people true knowledge about whether questionable results have occurred in the election. Then audits would be much easier to organize. Happily, California is mostly a paper ballot state.

Concern has been expressed that the exit polls of the Democratic Primaries for this year, when compared to electronic voting machine totals, seem to show a pattern that might suggest that the electronic vote totals in about ten states may have been changed to favor Hillary Clinton. In contrast to other nations, exit polls used currently by the Federal Government to assess election fraud in other countries are adjusted continuously on election day to match electronic voting machine totals, rather than to determine whether the electronic vote is accurate.

A 2006 video of Stephen Spoonamore, a Republican who was partly responsible for Obama winning the 2008 election. Learn how in this meeting!

Chicago Board of Elections. This shows the kind of defensive behavior that Boards of elections frequently demonstrate even when politely challenged.

If you want to see the full hearing, start at minute 27. The article will also summarize the whole story. Click to learn more.

Richard Charnin speaks about exit polls. This mathematician has been studying exit polls since 2004.When much suspicion arose this year about Edison, a U.S. primary exit poll company’s habit of adjusting exit polls to match the electronic data, Edison and the Media Consortium (media companies that report the election news to us) decided to cancel any further exit polling following primaries. Although Edison usually receives money from The Media Consortium for conducting primaries exit polling, it will receive much more during the November election, so canceling it is not that great a hardship. Maintaining the trust of the American people and The Media Consortium is more important to their company’s financial picture, even if the picture provided by Edison to the American people is inaccurate because election results are continuously changed to fit unverifiable electronic vote totals.

So you might ask, “How can I support our elections being honest here in California on June 7th?” Contributing financially to exit polling will definitely be valuable. Letting The Media Consortium know that there will still be an exit poll could be a deterrent to vote manipulation. On a more personal note, be sure to take a printed copy of your registration to the polling location if you are not a permanent absentee voter. If you are, and your ballot came in the mail, check your ballot to be sure it accurately represents the party in which you are registered, which allows you to vote for the candidate of your choice. We recommend physically taking your ballot to the polling location, rather than mailing it, so there is no chance that it gets lost in the mail.

Other things you can do include becoming a poll observer with a modest amount of training. Manipulation of the vote can frequently be minimized when there are people watching the process. Becoming a poll worker is an even bigger step. If you happen to be voting on an electronic voting machine without a paper trail, take a video or snapshot of the screen if you see it was flipped to the opposing candidate or if your candidate of choice fades away on the screen.

If there are major discrepancies in the California exit poll and the vote totals, assuming that we can raise the money for the exit poll, participating in an audit could be a great contribution. The exit poll we are proposing will be run through the Columbus Institute of Contemporary Journalism. More information about contributing financially to the exit poll will be available during both evenings and through the Sunrise Center office, which is also the office for the Institute for American Democracy and Election Integrity.

Wednesday, 7:30 to 10 pm, May 25, 2016

Bob Fitrakis, Cliff Arnebeck and Lori Grace

2016 is, of course, a presidential election year and problems with voting in the primary elections have already been showing up. Not a good sign for the general election! Would you like to learn how to protect our voting process as well as protect your own right to vote? If so, this is the workshop for you! Learn also why the integrity of the November election may be of serious concern. Some corporations with highly questionable directors will be counting our votes in November. Some votes may be counted in Toronto and in Barcelona, Spain. Learn how poll watching can be a contribution to election integrity. Less stealing happens when people are watching, particularly people who have received some modest amount of training. This workshop will also teach you how to be a poll observer and something about how to be a poll worker.

Click To Learn More

All states use electronic voting machines to count votes. Some are opti scan machines which utilize a paper ballot. Other states are almost entirely DRE’s – electronic voting machines with no paper ballot. DRE’s are very vulnerable to electronic fraud. Would you like to know where to call if your vote flips from the candidate you selected to the opposing candidate? These questions and many others will be answered in this evening.

You will also learn about how exit polls originally intended to protect our elections are now adjusted throughout an election to match electronic machine totals so that Mitofsky’s company that does our exit polls will be able to still receive much money from the Media Consortium each election year. Citizens are eager to find out as soon as possible who wins and the Media Consortium is eager to give exit poll results to citizens so that they continue to receive money for expensive ads purchased by various companies. The BIG TROUBLE with exit polls is that unlike in any other developed nation they are adjusted to fit the tabulator totals from the electronic voting machines which are vulnerable to fraud.

Learn what is being done both for the primary and for the general election to challenge this process of adjusting exit polls via a lawsuit that will take place in California, Ohio and New York. Learn what you can do to support the effort.

This is a video of Stephen Spoonamore from 2006. He is a Republicanpartly responsible for Obama winning the 2008 election. Learn how in this meeting!

Unfortunately, about ten primary elections show substantial differences between the totals from exit polls and those from electronic voting machines. They show them giving votes from Bernie Sanders and to Hilary Clinton. Republican votes seem to have stayed the same. Below are the charts from mathematician and statistician Richard Charnin about what he calls, in this year’s primary, the “Clinton Shift.” Since 2004, Charnin has noticed what he calls the “Red Shift,” where electronic vote totals in close elections seem to be moved over a total of 4% from the Democratic candidate to the more conservative Republican one. In some cases, Democrats lost their election due to this apparent “Red Shift,” but nothing could be done about it. Richard Charnin is the author of Matrix of Deceit, a book about exit poll and electronic vote manipulation since 2004.

Free!

The YouTube below of a meeting with the Chicago Board of Elections in the 2016 primary shows the typical defensive behavior of election board officials when election irregularities are brought forward. Since the Chicago Board of Elections chose the voting machines used in the primary, they are naturally defensive as government officials.

Carolyn Crnich, a registrar from Humboldt County, California, showed real concerns for the accuracy of electronic vote totals. She received an award from the Institute of Democracy and Election Integrity in 2010.

Please register to save a seat for this free event. We do not want to have to turn you away because of lack of room.

Our facilitators: Long time election attorneys Bob Fitrakis and Cliff Arnebeck and election integrity activist, Lori Grace, will facilitate this meeting. Lori is flying Bob Fitrakis and Cliff Arnebeck in from Ohio to talk about all these election issues. All three of them have been working on election issues since 2004. Bob Fitrakis is editor of the Free Press (freepress.org) and has been the initiator, together with Cliff Arnebeck, of three important election lawsuits. Lori Grace has been active with Black Box Voting, Audit the Vote, Verified Voting, Protect Our Elections (protectourelections.org) and the Free Press since 2004.

Free!

Please pre-register — or at least call by the day of to let us know you’re coming. If fewer than four people RSVP, the class may not be held and we’d hate for you to arrive to a dark room. Click to learn more

]]>World in Danger: the Fukushima-California Connectionhttp://sunrisecenter.org/world-in-danger-the-fukushima-california-connection/
Wed, 06 Jan 2016 19:52:45 +0000http://sunrisecenter.org/?p=1968Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer of Fairewinds Associates gave an interesting presentation on the dangers of radiation at Sunrise Center in Corte Madera, California on November 23, 2015. This presentation was introduced by Lori Grace.

Have you wondered why people are still talking about Fukushima? Have you ever wondered what implications Fukushima has for California and for the Diablo Nuclear power plant? Because of the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the one that was caused by the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, is not over and remains dangerous.

Three molten nuclear reactor cores are still missing and the radioactive contamination that this 300-ton mass of “corium” continues to generate and release shows no signs of abating, in fact is increasing.

Join us as Arnie Gundersen, a dedicated and informed expert, sits down to ‘unpack’ what happened in Fukushima, how it came to happen, what’s going on there now, and what we might still be able to do about it.

(The previous posting was audio only, due to technical issues. This presentation includes complete video of the event.) Video by Enlightened Films.

]]>Final Transitions Conference and Life in the Afterlife debriefinghttp://sunrisecenter.org/1959-2/
Tue, 24 Nov 2015 18:14:21 +0000http://sunrisecenter.org/?p=1959Final Transitions Conference and Life in the Afterlife debriefing featuring Lori Grace, Katie Cartwright, Alan Hugenot, Phil Willcher and Ed Ellsworth at Sunrise Center. Friday, Oct. 30, hear from Lori, Katie, Alan, Phil and Ed as they share exciting information from two recent conferences focusing on consciousness around death, dying, and the afterlife. Katie and Lori will report on The Final Transition conference, which covered a number of important topics regarding approaching the end of life for oneself or others.

These topics included End-of-Life support, Near Death Experiences (NDEs) and the physics of consciousness, including the existence of non-local consciousness as presented there by Larry Dossey, MD and Stephen Schwartz, PhD. Other presenters we will be reporting on include Pim Van Lommel, MD, author of Consciousness Beyond Life: the Science of Near Death Experiences, Betsy MacGregor, MD, author of In Awe of Being Human: A Doctor’s Stories at the Edge of Life and Death, and Peter Fenwick, MD, on deathbed experiences and end-of-life care.

Katie Cartwright will report on Sheila Warnock, author of Share the Care, a book outlining highly effective support for individuals experiencing serious illness; and, Cynda Rushton, PhD, RN, FAAN, who presented on Ethical Quandaries at the End of Life, Cultivating Moral Resilience.

Alan Hugenot, Lori Grace, Phil Willcher, and Ed Ellsworth will present on select topics presented at the September Life in the Afterlife conference, which included NDEs, different ways of contacting the departed, and the science of mediumship. We have reports about presentations given by: Gary Schwartz, PhD, a recognized leader in afterlife research and mediumship; Mark Anthony, an author, psychic lawyer and investigator, who presented evidence reaffirming God does exist; Jane Turndorf, PhD, on healing unfinished business with loved ones that have departed; author Carla Wills-Brandon presented on Pre-death and Deathbed Visions; George Noory, the noted radio host spoke about his book, Talking to the Dead; and, Rhonda Eklund-Schwartz on Love Eternal: Establishing New Relationships in the Afterlife.

]]>GMO Scientists Talk About Glyphosatehttp://sunrisecenter.org/gmo-scientists-talk-about-glyphosate/
Tue, 28 Jul 2015 01:49:10 +0000http://sunrisecenter.org/?p=1939Unedited video of Evaggelos Vallianatos and Don Huber’s talk on glyphosate at Sunrise Center on July 24. Since I don’t have time to edit their Powerpoint slides into the speaker’s presentation, I have posted their slides separately from the speaker presentation video. Evaggelos Vallianatos’ Powerpoint slides: https://youtu.be/1DyBtjwkCsw Don Huber’s Powerpoint slides: https://youtu.be/1U4ofZEuROs

]]>Hale Akua Summer Specialhttp://sunrisecenter.org/1916/
Wed, 08 Apr 2015 18:32:12 +0000http://sunrisecenter.org/?p=1916Are you wanting to get away from another very hot, very dry summer here on the West Coast, in this year of exceptional drought? Would you like to take your next vacation in a place that is lush, green, fertile and cooler? Do you live in an urban area where, once again, you will be breathing dirty air because there is no rain to wash away the smog?

Wouldn’t you prefer to take a vacation this summer in a place that’s bathed in air cooled by gentle ocean breezes and filled with moist, refreshing, ionized air from a nearby 150-foot waterfall?

If so, Hale Akua Garden Farm, located on the cool, lush side of east Maui is for you. It is actually COOLER than most parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live and Hale Akua Garden Farm is where I go for my summer vacation.

I hope you will take some time to luxuriate by day or by moonlight in one of our spacious hot tubs — to just peacefully relax while enjoying spectacular views of the blue Pacific ocean and miles upon miles of untouched coastline.

Take time to walk our beautiful grounds, with its lotus pools, lush green foliage, and colorful, fragrant flowers. And swim in our 60-foot, solar-heated, salt water pool. You may even wish to take a yoga or meditation class, offered on a donation basis to eco-retreat guests, or to book a wonderful healing massage, offered by a licensed professional.

In addition to being an eco-retreat center. Hale Akua Garden Farm is a certified organic farm. No pesticides, herbicides, or harsh cleaning agents are used at Hale Akua. You can watch some of your food growing right before your eyes, purchase it right there and prepare your fresh food in the kitchen connected to the house where you are staying.

Do you care about climate change? Hale Akua is powered largely by solar electricity, so you can feel good about being a guest at a retreat center that cares about climate change, like you do.

And, to make this invitation even sweeter: Hale Akua is offering you a 20% discount if you stay with us anytime between April 1st through September 30th. And, if you are one of our many returnees, we’ll give you an additional 5% off.

So reserve your stay with us now, before we are completely sold out —and give yourself one of the best vacations you have ever had!

I am very excited to share with you my body-centered approach to Compassionate Communication also known as Nonviolent Communication or NVC.

NVC was developed by Marshall Rosenberg, and has been used by people all over the world to create greater harmony and understanding in their lives. I developed this body centered approach to NVC so that I could utilize NVC even more effectively in my own life. I have also used it in my work with couples and singles and have taught it in a number of workshops. And now I would love to share it with you!

As you may know, Compassionate Communication or NVC embodies skills that enable us to listen and speak from our heart, without judgment or evaluation. The underlying intention is to truly connect — with ourself and with another.

Being relaxed and grounded when in challenging situations can enhance self-empathy and, in so doing, can create greater self-understanding and personal change. Just as importantly, being grounded during a challenging conversation, can also help you to create greater empathy for, and a stronger connection with, the other person.

I think that we all know that when we feel centered, we can often express ourselves in ways that are easier for another person to hear. Something that not everyone knows is that the physical state we are in can also affect how we interpret what another is saying to us. So, when we are relaxed and centered, we might more easily empathize with another.

In this class, we will practice ways of learning more about what happens in our bodies unconsciously when we are upset, frightened or sad. Then, we will see how our perceptions are affected by what’s occurring physically. We will practice ways to get centered and discover what then happens to our perceptions and to our ability to empathize with another. Finally, we will work with a partner in a more difficult role-play.

I am inviting you to join me now my upcoming class. I believe that what you will discover and learn will be both fascinating and easy to integrate.